


the things we do not become

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Family Issues, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: S01e10 Secret Squirrel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: She, as she is, is enough to please nobody other than herself. It should mean more that this life is making her happy, at least. It doesn’t, though, because each time she thinks of her mother, she can only recall the look on the woman’s face the day Harper told her she was joining the Corps, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever be truly free of that image of such abundant disappointment.
Relationships: John "Abe" Abraham & Harper Li
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	the things we do not become

**Author's Note:**

> How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become? - Doc Luben, _Fourteen Lines from a Love Letter or a Suicide Note_

Her mother’s phone calls begin exactly three minutes after Bard calls _his_ mother to tell her they’ve called off the wedding, and, as she stares down at the glowing screen, Harper can’t help but wonder if Adeline Worthington is texting her mother updates in real-time, or if this is just another instance of Camilla using those terrifyingly accurate maternal instincts for her own benefit. 

Harper is in the car with Abe when the phone rings, driving out to Fairfax to meet with their only witness to a case Turnbull is not-so-secretly desperate for them to win, and he eyes her strangely when she sends the call to voicemail rather than answering, his brows only hiking up further when she turns the device on Silent and shoves it, rather hastily, into her purse. 

“You know,” he begins hesitantly, as unwilling (at least on the surface) to involve himself in her personal affairs as he’s ever been, “we’ve still got another fifteen minutes before we get to the Hendersons’. If you need to take that...” 

“Bard was telling his parents today,” Harper informs him, staring straight ahead. “About...” 

If the sympathetic grimace on his face is anything to go by, Abe does not need nor want any further information to understand what it is she’s trying to say. “Ah. I’m sorry.” He studies her for a moment, just out of the corner of his eye, before he speaks up again. “Didn’t you end things almost a week ago? Why’s he just now telling his parents about it?” 

“Well, there’re several reasons for it,” Harper sighs, leaning her head back against the seat and allowing her eyes to drift closed, just briefly. “His father’s been in Bucharest on business for the past three weeks, and he didn’t want to tell them separately. He knows they’re going to be pretty disappointed. Like I said, his mother’s been planning the wedding we just canceled since we were at Stanford. And I think it’s also because…” She trails off with a sad little shrug. “Maybe there’s a part of him that was hoping we’d figure out how to make it work.”

“Why do you think he’s been hoping that?” the captain asks, not unkindly.

She turns her head to smile over at him, but the expression is brittle and fades within half a second. “I’ve been hoping the same thing,” she admits, so quietly that the words are little more than a whisper. “It’s – I didn’t think it’d work out,” she hastens to clarify. “Too much has changed. But still, I hoped. And he and I… Well. There was a time, not that long ago, when he and I were pretty in sync, that’s all.”

Abe nods at that, still eyeing her critically. “Is that the reason you’ve been avoiding telling your mother? You were still holding out hope…”

Harper’s laugh is humorless. “No. No, that’s not why. I, um, I try to avoid telling my mother about my life as much as I possibly can. Especially when I know it’ll disappoint her, which this definitely will. This might even be worse than when I enlisted in the Corps, or when I chose Stanford over Harvard.”

Abe’s brows furrow. “Stanford’s the second highest-ranked university in the country.”

“And Harvard’s the first,” Harper smiles bitterly. “And nothing less than the best is ever going to be good enough for my mother.”

The captain looks like he wants to say something in response of that, but it appears he thinks better of it at the last second, because instead he just nods thoughtfully before returning his attention to the road.

Her phone vibrates against her leg an additional half-dozen times before they pull into the Hendersons’ driveway ten minutes later. Each time, she pretends she can’t feel a thing.

-o-

Her father calls her later in the day, just as she’s cleaning up from dinner, and she thinks about ignoring him, as well, but knows she can’t do that. Ignoring Camilla Li makes her angry. Ignoring _Henry_ Li, on the other hand… well, it just makes him worry, and as much as Harper wants to avoid this conversation, she can’t quite bring herself to put her father through that.

“ _Nǐn hǎo,_ _Bàba_ ,” she answers on the final ring, running a dinner plate under warm water before adding it to the pile of washer-ready dishes on the counter. “ _Nǐ hǎo ma_?”

“You and Bard called off your engagement,” her father responds evenly.

Harper bites back a sigh, her eyes drifting shut in defeat as she draws in a deep breath before answering him. “Yeah, Dad, we did.”

“Your mother heard about it from Adeline Worthington,” her father continues, still suspiciously calm. “Your mother heard about it from someone other than _you_ , Harper, and as such, _I_ haven’t got to _stop_ hearing about it at any point in the past eight hours.”

“I’m sorry,” Harper apologizes weakly. “I just, I knew you’d be disappointed in me…”

“Are you happy?” her father interrupts suddenly.

“I…” Her forehead wrinkles in confusion. “What?”

“With the life you’ve chosen for yourself,” he clarifies. “Does the life you’re living make you happy?”

“ _Yes_ , Dad,” she answers honestly. “I’m happy.”

“Then I’m not disappointed, Harper,” he says earnestly. “How could I possibly be disappointed by your happiness?”

“Mom is,” Harper can’t help but point out.

“Your mother is not disappointed you’re happy, Harper. She’s…” Her father trails off. “She’s worried for you, that’s all. She wants you to have a good life, and she thinks…”

“She thinks everything I’m doing with my life _now_ is completely wrecking my chances of getting one,” the lieutenant finishes helpfully, tilting her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I know, Dad. I get the weekly emails.”

Her father sighs. “ _Xiǎo niǎo_ , I know your mother doesn’t always make it easy for you to see this, but she is the way she is with you because she cares about you. She really does want what’s best for you, I know she does. It’s just difficult sometimes, as a parent, to accept you and your child don’t agree on what that is.”

“She hasn’t really talked to me since Syria, Dad,” Harper confesses defeatedly. “She just… she shut down as soon as she found out what’d happened.”

“You’re our only child, Harper.” Her father hesitates. “Our only child almost died in a warzone.”

He sounds as broken as Harper’s ever heard him as he utters the words, and a new wave of guilt washes over her.

“Dad…”

“You were brave, and you were courageous,” he continues shakily, “and I am so proud of you for that, but, Harper, you still could have _died_ there.”

“I _didn’t_ , though, Dad,” she reminds him needlessly. “And Mom still won’t _talk to me_.”

“Give her time,” he suggests, the recommendation not as helpful as he probably means for it to be. “And just… _pick up the phone when she calls you_ , would you, kid?”

Harper laughs tearfully. “Alright, Dad,” she agrees lightly. “I’ll make sure to do that.”

-o-

“My mother wants to know if you like chocolate,” Abe informs her a few mornings later, glancing up from the paperwork he’s been procrastinating his way through for the past half-hour. It’s a slow day, with no cases on the docket, and they’re sitting in their shared office, sitting opposite each other, as they finish up with paperwork they’ve been putting off.

(Well, as Abe finishes up with paperwork _he’s_ been putting off. Harper’s has been done for days now. She’s in the habit of doing it on the plane. Meanwhile, Abe likes to wait until the last possible second before finishing his. It’s not surprising to either of them to realize that Harper is far more responsible when it comes to documentation on the average _Tuesday_ than Abe has been on _any_ day in his entire career.)

Harper arches a brow, amused. “Why does _your mother_ want to know if I like chocolate, Abe?” she asks humorously. “Your mother has never even _met me_.”

“My younger brother got his PCS paperwork back yesterday. He’s going to Camp Hansen,” Abe offers in way of explanation.

“Hansen?” Harper repeats, surprised. “Isn’t that in Okinawa?”

The captain nods. “Yes, which is why my mother’s stress-baking. She hasn’t really _accepted_ the fact that her youngest is going to be over seven thousand miles away from her.” He smiles fondly. “She’s baking a lot more than she can eat, so she’s making me bring some of it up here. So I must ask, again, how do you feel about chocolate, Lieutenant Li?”

“Big fan of it,” Harper assures him, glancing over at her phone as it begins to ring. “Speaking of mothers, that’s mine now.”

“You need an excuse?” Abe offers distractedly, squinting confusedly down at the document he’s in the process of filling out.

“Nope,” she sighs, pushing away from the desk and heading for the hall. “I’ll be back soon, alright?” she tosses over her shoulder as she goes.

“Taqueria for lunch?” Abe calls back.

Harper rolls her eyes fondly as he mentions the same food truck he always does when the topic of lunch comes up, but just nods in response. “Yeah. If I’m not back by noon, let’s just meet there, alright?”

“Got it,” Abe returns, attention returning to his paperwork as Harper accepts the call, heading for the elevator.

“ _Ciao, Mamma_ ,” she greets evenly, boarding the elevator once its doors open and leaning back against the wall after pressing the button for the ground floor. “ _Come stai oggi_?”

“ _Ciao,_ Harper,” her mother returns just as calmly. “I’m well, as is your father. How are you?”

“Well, it’s not very busy around here. No cases on the docket. We’re getting a bit of a breather.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Camilla hesitates. “I was sorry to hear about you and Bard.”

“I was sorry to have to do it,” Harper confesses honestly, walking out into the lobby. She heads for the automatic doors, settling on a bench once she’s outside and leaning against the armrest as she awaits her mother’s reply.

“What made you decide to?” the older woman asks curiously. “You two seemed so _happy_ the last time I saw you…”

“Mom, the last time you saw us in person was _Labor Day_ ,” Harper can’t help but point out. “ _Last year_.”

“I know, I just…” Camilla trails off. “I don’t understand what _happened_ , _passerotta_. Four years ago, you hadn’t even _mentioned_ the Marine Corps, and now you’re changing your entire future over it.”

“The Marine Corps isn’t the reason Bard and I broke up, Mom,” Harper sighs, slumping in her seat as she presses her free hand to her forehead, hiding her face from view. She is aware a headache is coming on, can feel it building up behind her eyes, but Dad told her she needed to talk to her mother, and, God help her, that is exactly what she’s going to do. “Sure, it was a deciding factor, but it wasn’t the _only_ deciding factor.”

“This isn’t about you and Bard anymore, _tesora_. This is about you. What happened to _you_? We’ve never _talked_ about it. You never told us _why_ you wanted to become a Marine. You just told us you were going to enlist, and you expected us to be alright with it. And I have _tried_ , Harper, I really have, but you nearly died, and I just think it’s time for you to consider ending this madness.”

“It’s not _madness_ , Mom,” Harper fires back. “It’s _my life_. I don’t want to spend it _suing_ people, alright? I don’t want to just… make money, no matter who gets hurt in the process. I want to _help_ people. I want to make this place _better_ for people. And I can’t do that in litigation, but I _can_ do it with the Corps. I _am_ doing it with the Corps. I am making a _difference_. I am _proud_ of the work I am doing, Mom. Why is that not enough to make _you_ proud of it, too?”

“ _Neonata_ , I am so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. I am. I guess I’ve just… well, I have been running on the assumption that this would end, one day. I’ve always thought you’d be alright with leaving the Corps, in a year or two, and that you and Bard, you’d move back home to San Francisco and settle down, start the process of taking over the company…” Camilla pauses, inhaling deeply. “But that’s never going to happen, is it? With or without Bard, you’re never going to come home, are you? You’ll be there, in Virginia, working with the Judge Advocate General’s Office, until they tell you that you’ve got to retire, won’t you?”

Harper doesn’t even have to think about it. “I will be. Are you going to be alright with that at any point?” she returns hesitantly.

Camilla falls silent for several seconds before finally echoing her daughter’s earlier words. “I will be.”

-o-

“Is your mother proud of you?”

Abe doesn’t actually choke on his mouthful of rice when she asks the question, but the look on his face as he glances up after his coughing fit tells her it’d been a close thing. “I’m sorry,” he croaks after a few seconds spent trying to catch his breath, “ _what_?”

“Your mother,” Harper repeats calmly, picking up her own taco. “Is she proud of you?”

“Uh. Yes?” It sounds like a question more than anything, and he narrows his eyes slightly as he stares at her from the other side of their foldable table. “Yes, she is. Why do you ask?”

“Because my mother isn’t,” Harper sighs, setting the taco back down to poke dejectedly at her rice. “She isn’t proud of _me_ , I mean.”

“I thought she said she _was_ proud of you.”

“Oh, _of course she said it_ , Abraham, what kind of monster tells their kid they’re not proud of them?” She huffs a sigh, dropping her plastic fork into the little paper boat her meal had come in. “But she’s _not_. She isn’t. You can’t be proud of someone for doing the thing you’re _disappointed_ in them for doing, now can you?”

“I feel like that was a rhetorical question.”

“It _was_.” Harper sighs again, much heavier this time. “ _What is it_ that everyone finds so wrong with who I am now?”

“Hey,” Abe replies seriously, blue eyes finding brown. “There’s nothing wrong with who you are, Harper, alright? Nothing.”

“Isn’t there?” she laughs humorlessly. “I’m not the daughter my parents raised, anymore, or the woman Bard fell in love with. I’m letting down these people I’ve known my entire life by doing what I’m doing. It might be time to consider that I should… stop doing it.”

“Sure,” Abe agrees sharply, “you can stop doing it and end up letting _yourself_ down in the process.” He waits until she glances up to meet his gaze before continuing. “Harper, I get that you love your parents, and you love Bard, but you can’t live your life thinking about what’s going to make everybody else _aside from you_ happy.”

“I know,” she sighs. “There’s just a part of me that’s, I don’t know, four years old, and the only thing she wants out of this life is to make her mommy proud of her.”

Abe cracks a smile. “ _My_ mommy’s proud of you, if that makes you feel any better.”

She squints at him. “Your mommy doesn’t even know me.”

“Eh, true,” Abe nods, pushing back from the table, “but my mom’s proud of pretty much everyone.”

“You’ve got a good mom,” Harper tells him genuinely, smiling in thanks as he gathers her trash, as well. “I know I’ve never met her, but I think I might love her.”

Abe chuckles. “Well, having known my mother for the past thirty-four years, I can assure you that, despite having never met _you_ , she definitely loves you. She doesn’t exactly make double-chocolate cookies using her top-secret recipe for everyone, you know.”

“I’d be willing to bet money she’s made them for every single person who has ever asked.”

Abe winces. “Yes, she has. I don’t know why I even bothered to say the other thing.”

“Neither do I,” Harper deadpans, smirking up at him as he shakes his head at her fondly, then turns for the row of trashcans situated several yards away from their current spot.

She stares after him for a moment, then glances down at the screen, biting back a sigh when she sees it remains blank. Her mother’s not said anything to her since the abrupt ending of their conversation a few hours earlier, and the silence is really starting to get to her.

She knows it shouldn’t be. She knows Abe is right. But she can’t shake the thought that she, as she is, is not enough to please anybody other than herself. It should mean more than this life is, at the very least, making her happy. It doesn’t, though, because each time she thinks of her father, she can only recall the terror in his gaze on the day she told him she was joining the Corps, and when she thinks of her mother, she remembers only the defeat on the woman’s face on that same day, and Harper doesn’t think she is ever going to be truly free of the damage that image of such abundant disappointment has caused her.

Her father is proud of her. Her mother is proud of her. In their own way, they are glad for her success, and they are grateful for what she has been able to accomplish. But they’re not _happy_ for her, are they? Not really, at least. She’s still their child, yes, but she’s no longer their pride _and_ their joy. They’re proud of her because that is what parents are _supposed_ to be. She truly doesn’t know if they’re honestly proud of anything she has ever done.

Her parents, her friends from back home, _Bard_ … she can’t help but wonder if she’s going to be enough for anyone, ever again. It’s a stupid thought, of course, but it’s one she nevertheless cannot help but have.

“Hey,” Abe returns before she can become too lost in her wallowing, “you want frozen yogurt? We’ll be passing the truck on the way back, anyway.”

“Sure,” Harper agrees easily, grabbing her purse and standing from their table. “I’ve got some major psychological trauma going on right now. Sugary food seems like the only plausible solution.”

“Or you could talk about it,” Abe suggests helpfully.

“Talking doesn’t come with rainbow sprinkles, Abraham.”

“Fair point,” he concedes, smiling down at her when she bumps her shoulder playfully into his as they walk.

(And maybe realization strikes, when they arrive at the frozen yogurt truck and he asks that they put _double_ rainbow sprinkles on hers – _this is very important, Harper, you should get what you want_ – or when they pass by Trey on the way upstairs and he simply glances at the cups in their hands and just sighs that sigh that tells them he’s extraordinarily fond of them but doesn’t want it to show – _the same sigh Harper’s sure he’ll use on his children, when the time comes_ – or when Maya takes one look at the cup in Abe’s hand and can’t bite back a teasing quip.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s in those moments Harper stops doubting her ability to find people who’ll accept her as she is and accepts that maybe, just maybe…

she’s already found them.)

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you wondering: 
> 
> -For the sake of this story, Harper is a second generation Chinese American on her father's side, and a second generation   
>  Italian American on her mother's. Her maternal grandparents both left Italy with their families to escape fascism; her   
>  dad's parents escaped Communist China soon after getting married in the 1950s. 
> 
> -Harper's father calls her "Little Bird." Her mother calls her "Little Sparrow," "Treasure," and "Baby Girl." 
> 
> \- All the above terms of endearment were translated using Google, as were the little bits of Italian and Mandarin used in   
>  the story. If any of you speak Italian or Mandarin and cannot deal with how glaringly wrong I am, please feel free to   
>  correct me in comments.
> 
> \- In my head, Henry Li is played by Donnie Yen, and Camilla Li is played by Monica Bellucci.


End file.
